


Unconditional

by Canaan



Series: How It Could Have Happened [3]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Multi, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-06
Updated: 2011-01-06
Packaged: 2017-10-14 11:26:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/148770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Canaan/pseuds/Canaan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>How the TARDIS crew became something more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Armistice

**Author's Note:**

> Foundation story, unbeta'd.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, but if I don't write them down, they make it very hard to sleep.

Jack emerges into the hall and almost bumps into Rose, who's wearing a concerned look and a T-shirt that falls nearly to her knees. Her eyes acknowledge him as he falls into step beside her. "What was it?" he asks.

She shrugs. "What did you hear?"

"I don't know what I heard. I just . . . something's wrong." Wrong enough to have him halfway to his bedroom door before he'd remembered the Doctor's rules about nudity in his ship and gone back for pajama bottoms. "Is it the Doctor?"

She's half his age and he's looking to her for guidance. When it comes to the Doctor, she's in charge--he's known that since 1941, and now he wouldn't have it any other way. At first, he'd thought the obvious about that relationship, but now . . . even if she were sleeping with the Doctor, Jack would know the truth: With that much darkness lurking behind your eyes, there's a terrifying absolution in leaving your soul in the hands of a nineteen-year-old girl who refuses to be afraid. Jack knows, because he's sure she's holding half of his, as well. "Must be," she says, simply. "The TARDIS is unhappy."

When she says it, it clicks into place. That's the thing that woke him: a change in the ambient sounds of the beautiful ship, an unhappy murmuring and a maybe-inaudible need. "Yeah," he breathes.

They don't walk far before they find the Doctor's room. They both look at the handle, and then at each other. "Feels odd, doesn't it?" Rose says.

"It might be locked," he points out.

"If the TARDIS wants us here, we'll get in." She touches the handle and opens the door a crack.

The brighter light from the hallway spills across just a corner of a bed. It's the moans that draw them inside, peppered with gasps and brief near-screams that sound unearthly--Jack would say alien, but he's heard unbelievable things wrenched from human throats in extremis. Jack closes the door behind them and they let their eyes adjust to the low glow of the TARDIS's night-cycle.

The room is cold, and the Doctor has been doing battle with the bedclothes. The tangled mass twists a little more as he writhes under it, an ongoing stream of non-verbal protests wrung from his throat. Rose takes two steps toward him, her heart showing on her face, but Jack grabs her wrist in time. The upset he can't read off her face shows in her posture. He pulls her close and whispers to her, "If you wake him out of that, he might not recognize you. The way he's going on, there's a real possibility he'd hurt you before he really woke up."

She glares at him--he can't really make out her eyes, but the angle of her head and the tension in her shoulders make it clear. "I don't care," she mutters.

"But _he_ will. If he so much as bruises you, he'll be beating himself up for weeks. And how'll you ever get him to touch you if he feels guilty about the last time he did?" He puts his grin into his whisper--at least she can't see that it doesn't reach his eyes. Her shoulders slump. "Stand beside him where he can see you. I'll wake him. I have good reflexes."

The tension leaves her body and she nods. He brushes a chaste kiss across her lips and she goes to stand on one side of the Doctor's bed while he chooses the other. He's seen men in the grip of nightmares like this, the kind that don't disappear right away when you open your eyes, but the Doctor isn't a man. He may look human, but the dense muscle revealed by even the casual touch of a hand has explosive potential, here. Jack's reassured Rose, but if he doesn't give this his full attention, he really could be taking his life in his hands. "Doctor," he says, quietly. And then, less quietly, "Doctor. Doctor, you're dreaming."

The Doctor's down deep. Rose has said that the Time Lord doesn't need much sleep, but Jack's not sure he's slept at all in the weeks since the ex-Time Agent came aboard. The night-glow is just enough for Jack to size up the reach of those arms before he ducks and takes the Doctor's shoulder, giving him a little shake.

Jack's pulling away and then he's sprawled on the floor, his jawline throbbing fiercely where the Doctor's clipped him. He gets to his knees and sees the Doctor sitting up in bed, not gasping only because he seems to need less oxygen than the human-types. "Doctor?" Rose says, not making a move toward him.

"Rose?" The Doctor's head moves as he looks toward her. Jack wonders what a Time Lord's night-vision is like as he rolls onto his side and gets to his knees, careful not to raise a hand to the spot he knows will bruise. "Jack? What . . . ?"

"You were havin' a dream, Doctor," Rose says. She sits beside him, not seeing or not noticing as he rocks back from her a couple of centimeters. "An' not a good one, by the sound of it."

Jack stands up. The Doctor looks back and forth between the two of them. "I woke you up," he realizes.

"Or the TARDIS did," Jack says. The air in here may be cold overall, but it feels good on his aching jaw.

The Doctor mutters something in a language the TARDIS doesn't translate. There's a pulse of acknowledgement, part-heard and part-felt, and Jack imagines it utterly unapologetic. The Doctor sighs. "Thank you." The words sound painful, and Jack's surprised he managed them. It's another small chink in the walls Jack's watched steadily eroding around the other man. "'m sorry I woke you." He reaches over and brushes a thumb across Rose's cheekbone. "Humans, always needing so much sleep . . . "

"We're not going anywhere, Doctor." It's all Jack can do not to cheer--not only is she standing her ground, she managed to head off the Doctor's move to push them away. Rose takes his hand in hers. "Dunno what you were seein' just now, but I've got a feeing if you send us away and close your eyes, you're just gonna be seeing it again." Her face turns toward Jack in the near-dark.

Jack sits on the other side of the bed and folds his arms across his chest, doing his best to look immovable. The Doctor's head tilts back, and Jack can imagine the eye-roll. He waits for a sarcastic remark, but the Doctor straightens his shoulders, instead. He reaches down and tugs at the bedclothes Rose is sitting on. "If you're going to stay," he says, "you should get under the covers. It's a proper Time Lord's temperature in here--you'll catch your death."

It must have gotten darker, because Jack can't see enough of Rose's posture to know her reaction. He knows she hesitates before standing up, but then the Doctor really does pull the covers back for her, and she crawls into the bed beside him. She stretches out on her side, looking at the Doctor, who lies back, himself, as he tucks the covers over her. Jack scoots farther onto the bed, still sitting. The Doctor leans his forehead against Rose's in a shocking lack of the _noblesse oblige_ he usually displays toward his companions. And because it's natural to comfort the people he loves, and because he can't resist pushing his luck, Jack reaches out to brush the back of his fingers across the back of the Doctor's neck, the way he'd gentle an animal.

The silence is deep, but neither Jack nor Rose is willing to see how fragile it is by trying to break it. It seems like a long time before the Doctor says, "Funny thing about wars, see? Everyone thinks they're about winning. No such thing as winning a war. The enemy does terrible things, and you do terrible things right back, and there's screaming and dying and innocents caught up in it and you tell yourself that you're doing the right thing. That when you just win, things'll be better, after. But you don't win. You lose. We both lost."

Jack doesn't have to see the empty look in the Doctor's eyes to know it's there. "You were there, weren't you?" Rose says.

"We were summoned. All the Time Lords, to wipe out all the Daleks, because we'd stood back like gods and pretended it didn't matter what they did to the universe, and now, there was no other way. Even me, who thought them all a colossal pain in the arse and spent hundreds of years, on and off, wanting nothing more'n to be shut of 'em. We fought, and when we knew it wasn't enough, we . . . " His voice trails off, ragged, and he draws Rose closer and she strokes his back. Jack rubs the back of his neck and feels the Time Lord shaking under his hand.

Time passes, and when the shaking stops, the Doctor says, "Someone had to do it. Someone had to stand on the outside. Someone had to do it, and burn for it. Hear them, and then hear each and every one . . . stop. Every stodgy, straight-laced, decorous, obstreperous, prideful, impossible, dutiful . . . " His breath catches, and it's almost a sob. The muscles under Jack's kneading fingers are painfully taut. "It was so empty," he whispers. "The silence was so loud inside my head, even the pain couldn't drown it out. I thought I was going to die, and I was glad."

Jack can think of things to say, but he's afraid to break the moment. Rose just holds the Doctor and Jack rubs his neck, and slowly, so slowly, his body begins to relax. Jack hears Rose's hands slow, and then still. "'m glad you didn't," she says, sleepily. "'m selfish. Wouldn't want to've never met you."

There's an odd sound, and the Doctor's shoulders shake, and Jack realizes it's almost a laugh. "You should sleep, Rose Tyler."

She sighs. "Should go back to our rooms." The bed shakes a little--Jack assumes she's starting to disentangle herself from the Doctor. Jack wants to stop her, but it's the wrong moment to push the Doctor.

The Doctor says, "Stay." Jack's breath catches. Rose doesn't say anything, just makes herself comfortable. The Doctor goes up on one elbow to watch her, which tells Jack he can see better in the dark and also causes Jack's hand to slide down across the Doctor's shoulder. Jack withdraws it, reluctantly, noticing that the Time Lord's skin isn't notably cooler than his fingertips. He tucks his hands into his armpits and stretches his legs out.

Jack's starting to nod a little by the time Rose's breathing is deep and even. He blinks himself awake again as the Time Lord settles back onto the bed. "How bad did I catch you?" the Doctor asks.

Jack blinks. It's the first time he's thought about the bruise on his jaw in what feels like hours. He didn't realize the Doctor even knew he'd clipped him. "It's fine," he says. "You can look at it in the morning."

The Doctor's silent a moment. "Sorry 'bout that. That was risky, you know."

Jack chuckles, quietly. "I know. Why do you think I convinced Rose to let _me_ shake you."

The Doctor makes a non-committal noise. "You sleep there, you'll wake up with a crick in your neck and a sore back, Captain."

Jack start to bristle, but bites back a harsh remark and swallows his temper. With his usual prudence and grace, he's managed to fall for a woman from a time when monogamy ruled the Earth and a magnetic alien who doesn't see anybody else when she's around. And that's not the Doctor's fault. He's thinking of excuses to stay when he feels the Doctor tug at the tangled bedclothes beneath him. Jack's opened his mouth before he realizes that's exactly what the Doctor did for Rose. "Is that an eviction or an invitation?" pops out before he can stop it.

"Tell me you're not freezing and you can sleep on top of the covers," the Doctor offers with a ghost of his usual humor.

 _"And miss a chance to let you warm me up?"_ is on the back of Jack's tongue, but he manages to catch it before it can go any farther. He stands up and hears the Doctor pull the covers back. Jack settles back onto the bed and stretches out beside the other man, feeling a couple of vertebrae pop. "Told you," the Doctor murmurs.

Jack retaliates by rolling onto his side and attempting to acquire the Doctor's shoulder for a pillow. When he succeeds, he's so surprised, his eyes go searching for the Doctor's face in the darkness. Like most spaceships, the TARDIS is never completely dark, except right now, in the Doctor's room, she is. But he and Rose are curled up with the Doctor, and he's afraid to comment. He's too content where he is to risk it.


	2. Lacuna

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I don't own them, I'm just haunted by them.

He should have sent them away. This close to him is no safe place to be, and it's not the circle of his arms that defines that. He didn't even have to send them, Rose knows him so well. She was moving away because she knew he wouldn't let them stay, and Jack would have gone with her.

It wasn't a decision, that one traitor word that slipped from his mouth, any more than it was a decision to tell them what he dreams about. It was more of an inevitable outgrowth of events, even if he didn't see it coming. After shared laughter and fears, running together and patching each other's scrapes, Jack's waking him from the nightmare and Rose's refusal to let him fall back into it were the single drop that finally made the cup run over.

They caught him in a weak moment, but he won't blame that. This isn't about anything they've done: This one is squarely on his shoulders. He let what he _wants_ occlude what he _should_ do, and now he's wrapped in human heat and dozing a little in spite of himself.

They're mayflies, humans are, but he can't bring himself to pull away. They flare so bright before they gutter out. Knowing how briefly they'll burn just makes him hold them tighter: The darkness will still be there when they're gone.

Jack cuddles into him, defenceless in sleep, and Rose's soft curves shift against him. He bends his head a little to inhale the strawberry-and-human scent of her hair. Somehow, between them, they've made a small, warm space where the Time War _isn't_.


	3. Surrender

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating goes up for this chapter, but it was starting to get long, so there's no actual smut here.
> 
> Edit: A few words changed after the incredible aibhinn brit-picked this for me. Remaining goof-ups are some combination of artistic license and my own stubbornness. :)
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, and I'm sure the BBC is relieved.

Rose drifts awake like floating upward through a fog of kittens and tea cakes and sunshine and everything else good and warm and safe. Someone is stroking her back, a touch that manages to be half-comfort and half-sexy, and since she can't quite figure out why that should be the case, she slits her eyes to peer out under the lashes.

She's looking at the Doctor, and he's looking at her. The gaze is almost tender, and at the same time, a little sad. And it's nothing she ever expected to see on the Doctor's face. He's also naked, at least from the waist up. More, she suddenly remembers the fractured window into his soul last night, which is somehow nakeder still. She wonders if she can feign sleep, because as soon as he realizes she's awake, one thing or the other will make him send her away, and she doesn't want this moment to end.

Something shifts behind the Doctor. Rose gives herself away as she unthinkingly raises her head just enough to know it's Jack spooned up behind the Doctor, face pressed close to the back of his neck. She wonders if Jack's awake or not, and thinks the answer is "no," and then "yes" as he shifts again and the Doctor reacts with a raised eyebrow. She manages not to giggle.

Jack's breath catches with pain and then his hand slides over, first, the Doctor's hip, and then Rose's thigh. She goes up on one elbow to look at him, far more concerned by that sound than the location of his fingers as the Doctor rolls onto his back to look at Jack's face. There's a truly spectacular bruise coloring his jaw. "What happened?" she demands.

The Doctor rolls his eyes. "Should've said something, Captain. Could've had a look at that last night."

Jack gives a wry smile and ignores the Doctor. "My reflexes were almost good enough," he tells Rose. "But if it gets me into bed with the two of you, I'm willing to take one for the team."

Rose groans at the lecherous remark she's sure she should have expected and rests her head on the Doctor's chest. It's such a natural, comfortable thing to do that she's draped her arm across him before it really sinks in that she's lying in the Time Lord's bed and she's just passed the invisible boundary of "familiar" and gone into territory marked "almost intimate" without ever planning it. She sighs and waits for the reaction, but the Doctor's arm is still around her.

Jack squeezes her bum. "Oi!" she says, reacting before the Doctor can growl at him. If it were anyone else in the bed, she'd have got embarrassed by now, and sat up or pulled away. But Jack's Jack, and not only is she not embarrassed, she finds you can't feel chaperoned by somebody who fancies both of you and is in love with at least one of you. Jack being Jack, he's probably trying to push the Doctor at her by provoking him. Only the Doctor doesn't react. She tilts her head to look at him. "You going to protect my virtue?" she asks.

The Doctor meets her eyes with the same thoughtful look she caught earlier. "Do you need protecting?" He reaches over and brushes a lock of hair out of her eyes, and it takes her breath away. It's the kind of thing you do for a lover, not a friend.

"Never did," she points out. "'m a big girl--I can take care of my own virtue. Or not, if I want."

It's the Doctor's turn to sigh as he rolls onto his side so he's facing her again. "This isn't fair to you," he says. "I've lost people before, one way and another. Live long enough, eventually, you'll lose everyone. You either take the risk or you don't. But you humans--amazing, you are. Taking risks you've no idea about, and if one of those risks takes you away from me, where does that leave you? What do I tell Jackie Tyler if you get stranded somewhere I can't rescue you--"

"No such place," Rose interrupts.

"--or if you spend the best part of a lifetime with me and the TARDIS brings you home on auto-pilot, and you have nothing, because all those years you should've been scurrying around working and saving and loving and getting wrapped up in a home and people, you've been drifting through space and time with a penniless tourist?"

Before Rose can point out that he won't be saying anything to Jackie Tyler if the TARDIS brings her home on auto-pilot, Jack says, "You aren't half arrogant, are you? Some of us aren't cut out for savings and homes and retirements, Doctor. If you're going to tell her Time Lords can make those decisions and humans can't, I'd wait till she's farther away. Or at least not somewhere I can hold you down while she hits you." He moves his hand off Rose's bum and wraps it around them both so it pins the Doctor's arm, the one that isn't still trapped under Rose.

The Doctor's eyes close. "I don't deserve you," he says, and Rose is sure he's talking to both of them.

She swallows her heart down out of her throat and stretches up to brush her lips across his. "Universe'd be a terrible place if we only got what we deserved."

The Doctor's eyes open and Jack makes a pained sound. The Doctor leans forward, so close to returning the kiss, but she has to come the last little space. She lets her lips part in invitation and his tongue slips between them tentatively, as if she's something fragile.

When the Doctor draws away, Jack gives an exaggerated sigh. "You two are precious," he says. "I'm going to go find the dermal regenerator. I won't wait up."

His arm disappears from around them and the Doctor starts to make apologetic noises again, but he's missing the point. Rose's sense of mischief gets the better of her. "You could kiss it to make it better, Doctor," she says.

The Doctor looks gobsmacked, and she's not quite sure why, but it's priceless. "Ah ah ah," Jack says. "If one of you puts your lips on me, I'm not going to be able to be noble and get out of this bed." She can hear the sudden grin she can't see past the Doctor's shoulder. "And if you both put your lips on me, it's going to be a very long time before any of us get breakfast."

The Doctor gets it, now, and he's studying her like he's waiting for a reaction. But Rose has had time to think about it since he put the gobsmacked look on her face in 1941 by telling her this incredibly macho bloke who'd been putting the moves on her also put the moves on other blokes--because when she's from, macho blokes just don't. She knows how Jack feels about the Doctor, and she knows she loves Jack. She's not sure she's in love with him, but she thinks she could be. There's this bottomless kindness in Jack, that just keeps giving and giving and doesn't hold anything back. It's the kind of thing that grows on you when you're not looking, until one day, you realize you can't live without it. "Suits me, but I don't know how the Doctor feels about it."

Whatever the Doctor feels, he wasn't expecting that. He blinks, caught out. "Time Lord, me," he says. "Ancient race, learned, dignified. Long since learned how to produce children without there being anything accidental or recreational involved. Which means those sort of desires are suspect to begin with. And with a 'lesser' species? That's so far bent, male and female hardly matters." Just as Rose is beginning to worry, the ghost of a grin touches his lips. "They always did figure I wasn't quite right."

That puts Jack up and leaning over the Doctor, looking down at him. The Doctor rests a hand on the back of his neck and pulls him in for a kiss. Rose watches, wondering if she ought to be bothered by that. Something changed last night: After drawing the Doctor's nightmare out of him, after the two of them holding him through the night, it seems natural enough.

When the kiss breaks, Jack looks at her and hesitates. His lips want hers, but . . . "Doctor, you going to go all 'dog with one bone' if Jack--" _kisses_ "touches me?"

The Doctor makes a small sound. "Rose--Jack--defences are for before you've surrendered. Not after."

"Surrendered?" The Doctor's fighting not to smile, which doesn't make Rose less indignant. She struggles up on one elbow. "You feel like you're losing, here?"

"Oi! Never said I was fightin' with _you_." Jack snickers. The Doctor kisses her protesting lips until she relaxes in his arms. Jack's hand strokes his hip, and then reaches past to rest on Rose's. "Stupid apes, always thinking everything's about _them_."


	4. Abandon

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BR'd by the amazing aibhinn! Any remaining mistakes are mine, not hers.
> 
> Disclaimer: These characters are not mine. I just want to watch.

With the Doctor's lips all over her mouth and jaw and neck and his hands tracing patterns on her back, it's a while before Jack gets his kiss. Rose isn't too worried, because the Doctor's made a couple small movements and noises she knows have nothing to do with her that tell her Jack's mouth and hands are busy, too.

When she comes up for air, Jack reaches over the Doctor and tangles his hands in hers. "You're wearing far too many clothes," he says, pulling her into a seated position. The Doctor sits up between them and tugs Rose into his lap. She has this nagging feeling like she ought to protest the handling, but he holds her close enough she can't doubt his interest, and while she's distracted, Jack claims a kiss. He plays his tongue across hers, stroking the inside of her mouth and nibbling gently at her lips. Thinking goes by the wayside. The Doctor's hands stroke her legs where they're bare below her nightshirt and tease along its hem. She moans, her body gone pliant between the two of them.

Jack nuzzles her neck, then, and licks along her collarbone. She shivers at the unexpected sensation and runs her hands down his ribs. The Doctor's hands work up to her hips, under the nightshirt without yet lifting it. Cool fingers are an amazing contrast to Jack, who burns like a space heater under her open palms. He sighs against her and rubs his uninjured cheek over her chest, just brushing the top of her breast. Her skin tingles beneath the fabric, and she reaches down to draw the shirt off over her head.

The room is still Time Lord temperature, and the cool air makes her shiver a little, but she has a feeling she won't be noticing, soon. Jack looks down at her in nothing but her knickers, approval in his eyes and something else. She swallows, her mouth gone dry at the look, and suddenly knows for sure that the Doctor's not the only one Jack is in love with. The Doctor pulls her back against him and draws his hands up over the hollows of her hips. She moans and can't help the way her hips twitch at the touch, and he shifts a little under her in return.

The Doctor's hands glide up over her ribs, slower than she'd like. Jack bends close and Rose finds herself watching, helplessly, as he draws his tongue around the hardened bead of her nipple. Her eyes shut and she moans. He chuckles a little and her eyes flutter open to look down into his as the Doctor's hands finally find her breasts. It makes her voice breathy as she complains, "Bet you do that thing with cherry stems, too."

Jack looks confused. The Doctor laughs softly and does something involving his fingertips and the soft skin on the underside of her breasts that makes her head fall back against his shoulder. "Huh?" Jack asks.

"Show you sometime," Rose mutters. The Doctor rolls one nipple in his fingers and she sighs for him, watching as he reaches for Jack with the other hand. He draws his knuckles lightly up Jack's throat. Jack's head lolls back, exposing his neck, and somehow, that one touch is more intimate than the way the Doctor's pressed up against her. Something pulses pleasure, low in her belly. The Doctor grasps Jack's chin in his hand and draws him forward for a kiss over her shoulder. She leans her head against Jack's shoulder, instead, and listens to the soft murmurs of pleasure they make as she wraps her hands around Jack, trailing her nails lightly down his back.

She traces the waist of the pyjama bottoms with one fingertip. When the other two come up for air, she says, "'m not the only one was wearin' too many clothes."

Jack pulls away from her, grinning, and wriggles out of the pyjama. She's appreciating the view and the Doctor's toying with edge of her knickers when he says, "That's all he needs--another excuse to get out of his trousers."

"You complainin'?" Rose asks.

"I need an excuse?" Jack says, leering his patented lecherous leer at them.

The Doctor trails his fingers across Rose's stomach, just above her knickers. Her muscles ripple under the touch like they've got a mind all their own and she gasps. "Nah," the Doctor says, cheerfully.

Jack's watching, and not unhappy about it. "Doctor," he says, his voice gone rough, "if you don't get her out of those, I will."

"Impatient apes," the Doctor says, but his hands slip under the sides of her knickers.

She half-turns to hang around his neck and gets her feet under her just enough to lift her bum. "Yeah, maybe," she says. "Been wanting this a long time, me. Jack, too."

The scrap of fabric is around her knees, now. "Been comparing notes, have you?" The Doctor wraps an arm under her shoulders and leans her back across his lap.

"Mmm. Some." Jack clambers over to claim her knickers and draws the fabric down over her calves, and until his fingers caress her legs and feet, she'd no idea that legs could be sexual that way. She whimpers, and the Doctor's stroking the soft flesh and curls just above the cleft where her legs meet, and she realizes she has no idea where her knickers ended up. Jackie Tyler's daughter is going to find her knickers on the doorknob or a lampshade or maybe never find them at all, and she can't be bothered to take the time to care about it because she's let her knees part and Jack is licking his way up the inside of her thigh while the Doctor's fingers have slipped between her legs.

For a species that isn't supposed to feel such things, the Doctor seems to know his way around, well, feeling things. Rose knows she's squirming under their combined attentions. Everywhere the Doctor isn't, Jack is, and she's mostly afraid they'll push her over the edge without one of them inside her. "'s wasn't s'posed to be about me," she gasps between moans.

"But we _want_ it to be about you, this time," Jack murmurs. He goes back to suckling on her nipple.

"Plenty of time, us," the Doctor tells her.

"I want you in me, when I . . . " She trails off in a whine as he rubs his thumb in a long, slow stroke over her clit.

"There's more than this once," Jack says. "Your body will do amazing things. Let us show you."

"I want to watch your face when you lose yourself, Rose," the Doctor says. "I want all my attention on you, because you, you're fantastic. Just trust me."

She's been trusting that voice since it first told her to run. Pleasure sweeps through her and she cries out, first stiffening and then going limp in their arms. The Doctor strokes damp tendrils of hair back from her forehead and murmurs tender syllables in her ear that aren't English, but which make her feel loved, anyway.

Jack's fingertips draw trails of sparkly feeling over her ribs and breasts as her orgasm fades. "Mind if I cut in?" she hears him ask the Doctor.

There's a longer pause than makes sense to her, so she opens heavy-lidded eyes. She finds the men sharing a look, but they're smiling, and the worry passes. Jack sits next to the Doctor and draws Rose into his arms, moving them both up the bed until he's sitting against the headboard and she's lounged between his legs, his arousal more than clear as he's pressed into her back, looking down the length of her body at the Doctor. He draws her legs apart, displaying her for their lover, and she finds herself blushing, though after what they've already seen and touched, she can't think why.

The Doctor's turned and sat back on his knees. He looks at her like she's his hope of salvation, his lips slightly parted and his eyes dark with desire. "Doctor?" she says, wanting to invite him and not quite sure how.

He licks his lips like they're dry and crawls the short space up the bed to kiss her. The long line of his body's resting between her legs, yet nothing touches her but his lips. She wraps her arms around his shoulders while he kisses her until she moans and moves helplessly, straining for the touch of cool skin. Jack strokes her hair, and when the Doctor lets her breathe, she gasps, "Oi! That as close as you're coming? Impatient ape, remember?"

The Doctor grins that manic grin of his under eyes clouded with a lust that's all for her. She can feel Jack's stomach moving under her as he fights not to laugh. He closes the few inches between them, and she can feel all his hardness pressed against her. "I love you," she breathes, "but you're drivin' me crazy. _Please_ , Doctor." He does, then, pulling back just enough to slip inside her, slowly. Too slowly. She wraps her legs around him and pushes her hips up against his, and he groans. "You won't break me," she says.

Behind her, _Jack_ whimpers, and no question he's enjoying the show, not when she's lying where she is. The Doctor pulls back again, and there's some force to the thrust this time. The pulse of pleasure at the end of the stroke drives a small sound from her, and she strokes the small of his back with both hands, encouraging him.

They find a rhythm, then, made up of slick skin and low noises and small, wet sounds. Jack's hands stroke her breasts, sometimes, and sometimes, she sees them petting the Doctor's hair and neck and shoulders, instead. She catches the Doctor catching Jack's eye, once, and there's love in the look that she knows is returned. It makes her even happier in the middle of this moment, and she arches into the Doctor, hard. "Together, Doctor," she says. "I want it to be together, this time."

The Doctor murmurs something that was probably meant for a response, but the man with all the words has been rendered incoherent. She lets him lead, trusting him, and as she passes the point of no return, he stutters against her and there's a low cry wrenched from his throat. For precious moments, there's nothing but the feel of him inside her and the weight of his body. When he rolls off her, her body misses it.

Eventually, she becomes aware that Jack's still stroking her hair, and the Doctor's too. She sighs, and it turns into a contented little noise. The Doctor smiles. "You're beautiful," Jack murmurs, and she knows he's talking to both of them, but she also knows what Jack wants most, because they _did_ have that conversation, when she couldn't watch him watching the Doctor anymore without asking.

The Doctor looks at Rose. It's not really a question, but Jack, who's always got a lecherous comment in queue, has gone quiet on them. "He wants you, Doctor," she says.

She feels Jack's body tense beneath her. "I want both of you," he says, cheerfully. "It's just a tragedy to have to choose."

Rose sits up and climbs over beside him. She kneels so she can get a hand on the back of his head and kisses him. He wraps his arms around her like it's reflex, so she feels his whole body jump, suddenly. He squirms a little in her grip, but he's not letting go, and neither is she. When his body's rocking a little, helplessly, she kisses down the side of his neck and looks over to see the Doctor kneeling where she lay, stroking Jack's hip with one hand while he has that unstoppable mouth wrapped around their lover.

Rose rests her head on Jack's shoulder so he can meet the Doctor's eyes. "Like you keep sayin', there's lots more time." She grins a little, catching her tongue between her teeth. "Like after breakfast, maybe."


End file.
